What kind of cultivation technique was this?
He didn't cultivate for immortality. It seemed everything he did was for battle.
Standing atop the giant tree with a sword on his back, Hermit Caolu had actually guessed early on, from Fang Xiu's style, that he would be formidable. Even so, he hadn't expected him to rely entirely on meeting force with force—
That alone would've been one thing. The key was that he really had been overpowering the Ghost King from beginning to end.
He'd expected Fang Xiu to disrupt the favorable terrain, while he borrowed starlight with the Northern Emperor Dharma Spell to seize the advantage of time. As for the remaining advantage—the human element—naturally, the four of them would join forces to fight the old ghost!
But now?
Aside from Fang Xiu, everyone else was standing around watching. Want to step in? There was no opening!
"His vitality is terrifying."
Silver-Armored Divine General Xiaogui swept his gaze over the domain formed by Deep Forest Emergence with a crude aura-reading technique, clearly sensing the abundant life force—and Fang Xiu was the source of it.
"This brother's a beast, but is he a monk? He actually summoned a giant bald monk to fight." Ma Shangfeng's attention was always on the strangest things.
At that, Hermit Caolu shook his head. His gaze fixed on the Wooden Giant Buddha, which had already gathered eighteen arms in midair. He sensed no trace of peace or benevolence from it.
Life force.
Yang energy.
Earth and water.
Nothing but these pure elements.
Could a figure like this appear in an era five hundred years later, when the natural order had weakened even further? The answer was clear.
But Hermit Caolu had lived a long time, and his heart had always remained clear. He was willing to help eliminate the Fusang Ghost King. Whatever Fang Xiu's origins, they were allies.
With that thought, he cleared his mind of distractions and began gathering starlight again, intending to use the spells and formations he excelled at to improve Fang Xiu's chances.
As for his two apprentices?
Let them watch. There was no need for them to protect him anymore—
As a high-ranking official, Ma Shangfeng was imbued with Dragon-Tiger Aura, which could ward off many evil arts and let him hold the Ghost King off for a while at a critical moment.
But given the situation now, even ordinary people watching from a high vantage point could tell which side had the upper hand!
"If that's all you've got, then it's time to wrap this up."
Unwilling to waste words, Fang Xiu formed Hand Seals once he'd gathered enough power.
Boom! Boom! Boom! The earth split apart.
One palm after another crashed down, like Tathagata's massive smacks, dished out as punishment to a disobedient monkey.
Of course, the Fusang Ghost King was nowhere near worthy of being compared to the Handsome Monkey King. He huddled in a corner of the ten-thousand-mile Earth Style Wall, his avatar gripping a slightly short backup katana—a wakizashi.
Could he still block them?
No.
In an instant, a Buddha's palm came crashing down from the sky and smashed him apart. Smoke billowed, shrouding the entire arena in a despairing gray. Looking up, he couldn't see even a sliver of sunlight—only the sensation of the earth shaking violently.
Perhaps... the earthquake bureau would issue a retrospective warning, telling the public how strong the tremor had been that night. It sounded bizarre, but somehow this disaster hadn't been caused by natural forces.
And so, the first smooth little combo came to an end.
It had control. It had damage.
Only then did Fang Xiu notice the update on the Main God Watch—limited side mission completed: eliminate the Nine Chrysanthemums Sect's base on Hong Kong Island.
Shazhou Team Captain Fang Xiu had completed the mission alone, earning two D-rank side-mission rewards and 1,000 points, with no need to split them with anyone else.
When had he completed it? Without a doubt, at the very beginning.
It wasn't clear whether the Nine Chrysanthemums Sect's members had been ground to fragments on the spot by the whirlpool formed from the endless Earth Flow River, or whether they'd been casually swept away as small fry by the Deep Forest Emergence that followed almost immediately, absorbed as nutrients.
In any case, the too-clever-for-her-own-good Nishiwaki Michiko had died with great purpose. Without her leaking Fang Xiu's location, sharing her vision, and using her beauty to hold the Ghost King back, the battle might have broken out much later, even with Hermit Caolu tracking him through Daoist arts.
The longer things dragged on, the more variables there were.
That was a lesson he'd learned and put into practice in his very first trial world!
—No Main God announcement had come.
—The old Fusang ghost really was hard to kill.
As his thoughts turned, the forest domain changed once more. The ground shattered by the Buddha no longer had any debris on it. The dust quickly settled, while the special soil sustained by the pseudo-immortal arts mode continued to prevent any escape.
That, too, was a lesson he'd learned.
"I let you get away once at the start. That won't happen again."
The stable domain formed by Deep Forest Emergence gave Fang Xiu confidence. He wasn't worried about being made a fool of.
At that moment,
the Ghost King gradually came into view at the bottom of the crater, in a truly wretched state. The Hoshi-kabuto he'd worn atop his head to protect it had long since been smashed to pieces. His blood-red hair was in disarray, and not a single fragment of his armor remained.
As if sensing Fang Xiu's gaze, the Fusang Ghost King struggled to raise his head. Strange light flickered in his Double Vision, which had festered and oozed pus under the Northern Emperor spell. "Sink into an Eternal Genjutsu!"
The words whispered in his heart.
The Ghost King launched a mental attack without hesitation. After all, he was the strongest among the ghosts, having fought his way up through their ranks. There was no way his powers in that regard could be weak.
It was one of his trump cards, one Hermit Caolu had never witnessed. Only Shishi, the kidnapped girl, had experienced it after her fierce resistance led to a mental invasion that broke her will.
"Why do you evil cultivators... always like using this kind of move?" The golden irises of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in Fang Xiu's eyes turned, abruptly transforming into a Mangekyō.
After doing so, Fang Xiu seemed not to care at all. He fell straight into the Ghost King's Genjutsu!
A desolate wilderness. Miasma filled the air.
Five black chains bound his hands, feet, and head. All around him were ghosts with shaved pate hairstyles, each baring their teeth and licking their lips, impatient to pounce and devour Fang Xiu.
"That's it?"
He felt not the slightest fear.
The Ghost King, certain he'd turned the tables, reveled in his triumph. His soul appeared in the mental world, laughing uproariously—then, suddenly... he instinctively felt a steady, unending pain.
His brain was reaching its limit! A higher level of power was fighting for control.
"Uchiha Itachi. That's a name that sounds irritating just to hear. One day, I'll have to find a way to kill him once, so the shadow he left behind won't linger."
Fang Xiu looked calmly at the ghosts and spoke as if thinking aloud. "But underestimating your enemy is disrespectful to yourself. At least the Genjutsu he created is pretty interesting..."
"It's called Tsukuyomi."
A voice like a thunderclap rang in the Ghost King's ears. The tables had turned. His pupils contracted sharply as he realized that he was now the one in chains.
"Within this world, the caster controls all factors, including time, place, and mass. The enemy will suffer immense mental and physical pain inside the Genjutsu world."
In the original manga, Uchiha Itachi used Tsukuyomi to drag Kakashi's mind into a Genjutsu space and bind him to a cross. He then created countless illusions that joined him in repeatedly stabbing Kakashi with Ninja Blades for seventy-two hours, inflicting immense mental and physical pain.
"I never studied Genjutsu in any particular depth. But some things are as easy as eating or drinking—they come naturally. Now... I'll use my Mangekyō eye power to create one. Enjoy it. No matter how painful it gets, in the real world, it'll be over in the blink of an eye."
Before you continue